


The Golden Rule of Life Undercover

by chaletian



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e18 Providence, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1474030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second you lie to yourself, you're dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Rule of Life Undercover

**BEFORE**

Ward had joined Coulson’s team very clear on what his mission was, and he hadn’t lost sight of that at any point. But hey, he was human (cover to the contrary), and he knew he had to take the possibility of human attachment into account. It was part of the job. There was never any point pretending that you would never care about anyone; that’s how people ended up getting blindsided by falling in love with a mark or whatever. That’s why people threw off their missions, fell to pieces, went to the other side. Ward knew better.

May was clearly there to watch Coulson, and there was no doubt the Cavalry was his biggest threat, so Ward got closer. And he respected her. Liked her, almost. He didn’t kid himself that she felt anything much for him, and he didn’t feel much for her. The sex was a good tension reliever. He didn’t foresee having any trouble killing May if the time came. They were both soldiers and this was war.

Coulson was a different matter. Everyone knew Coulson, knew what he’d done for SHIELD. The guy was a legend. Ward got a kick out of working with him. Coulson was someone who cared about people, who tried to help, who was pretty bad-ass doing it and Ward thought, probably, if things had been different, he would have given his loyalty to Coulson. But things weren’t different. It was Garrett who had held out a hand to Ward, Garrett who had saved him, and that was that. He would regret killing Coulson, if he had to, but he’d do it. Coulson would be disappointed in him, but then, Coulson shouldn’t have trusted him. After all, Hill had warned him – Ward was almost as good as Romanoff. Coulson should’ve listened.

And Skye. He’d liked her from the off, and that had set off alarm bells, because the Grant Ward on Coulson’s team was not the Grant Ward who’d go for some kind of hacker revolutionary like Skye, especially after she chose her boyfriend over them. The thing was, though, about this kind of mission, was that somehow, some way, you always got sucked in, and you had to come to terms with it. So he played the part of her SO, and gave into her, little by little, fantasised about her occasionally, worried about her when she got shot, allowed himself to get emotionally involved. Encouraged _her_ to get emotionally involved. He would kill her. If he had to. He hoped he wouldn’t have to, hoped Garrett wouldn’t ask him, hoped building this future wouldn’t demand it. But this was what he’d signed up for and he’d known, every step of the way, every late night conversation, every training session, he’d known he might have to kill her. Romance was for other people.

 

 

 

**AFTER**

What's left of SHIELD after Hydra was gouged out has mostly been taken over by the US military. It’s only Coulson and his rag-tag band of merry misfits who are doing much of anything, plus they still think Ward’s on their side, and he needs Skye to open the hard drive, so this is all pretty much as planned. He's all set to maintain his cover, but maybe Coulson finally paid attention to what Hill said, maybe it was something else, but Ward's cover is blown and that's that.

Here’s the problem: he’s got Skye to open the hard drive, May’s unconscious and Coulson and Skye are tied up right now, and very disappointed in him, and he knows Garrett’s going to get him to kill them, but he’s probably going to want a chat first, because God knows Ward loves the guy but he’s a fan of the monologue. And that’s all great, and Ward’s on his way out, but he’s kind of forgotten FitzSimmons, because they’re nice kids and all, but…

They’re in his way. Fitz has a gun trained on him. An actual gun, not the night-night gun. They both look disappointed in him too, and Fitz isn’t a great shot, and his hand isn't what you'd call 100% steady, but Ward is cautious nonetheless. And hey, now Simmons has a gun too, and she’s a worse shot but a lot steadier.

“Come on, guys,” he says, smirking a little, because, really, _he’s Agent Grant Ward, he can kill them with a thought_. “We both know how this is going to end.”

“No we don’t,” Fitz objects immediately. “We don’t know that at all.”

“I can’t believe- after all this time!” Simmons says. She sounds kinda outraged. “You lied to us!”

Ward shrugs, edges closer, calculates the dynamic at play. Physically, Fitz is – slightly – the greater threat. He thinks Simmons has the potential to be more ruthless. Neither of them will want to kill him as things stand, but he can’t rule it out. Fitz is in love with Simmons. Simmons loves Fitz but isn’t in love with him (yet – that’s gotta happen eventually – not that he cares). Ward makes his move and grabs Simmons and uses her as a human shield, his gun against her jaw.

“You saved my life!” Simmons says. She’s struggling against him, but she doesn’t have the leverage or the training to free herself. Fitz has tightened his hold on the gun, and Ward knows if he gives Fitz a target, an opportunity, he’ll take it, but he won’t risk hurting Simmons.

“Undercover 101,” he says lightly, moving her gradually towards the doorway, keeping her carefully between him and Fitz. “Worked like a charm, right, sweetheart?”

“Well, of all the…”

“ _Jemma_ ,” Fitz breaks in, and he sounds painfully like he’s going to cry, which Ward hopes not, because, awkward, and honestly, he just wishes this whole thing was over.

They stand there, just a second, in a dusty hallway, Ward and Fitz about eight feet apart, Simmons between them, and Ward thinks this is more easily solved by shooting Fitz and then shooting Simmons and then carrying on with his day.

He can’t do it.

It doesn’t even matter that a second later he thinks, no, he can’t, their skills are too valuable, Garrett will want them alive. It doesn’t matter that three seconds later Garrett himself runs in and there’s a flurry of action and Simmons gets shoved into Fitz and then Garrett and Ward are out of there because apparently _Iron Man_ ’s coming (like, what, someone said, hey, go save Coulson and his team, and actual _Tony Stark_ would just go do that?).

On a plane, later, a continent away, Ward accepts a beer from Garrett, and while they’re all shooting the shit, all he can think is, he couldn’t do it. He wants to say he knew he didn’t have to. Knew it wasn’t his job, knew they were needed alive, that was all. But this is the secret to this job; this is why he’s second only to Romanoff: never lie to yourself. The second you lie to yourself you’re dead.

He couldn’t kill FitzSimmons because he likes them, both of them, and he’d failed (abjectly failed) to take that into account, because Agent Grant Ward had looked at the soldier and the agent and the rebel and had known he would connect with them, but he’d dismissed the scientists, and that was a mistake. They’re annoying. They annoyed the fake Grant Ward and he thinks they’d annoy the real Grant Ward, but they’re brave and focused and fine, endearing, if you like that sort of co-dependent weirdness, and he had failed to take any of this into account, to think about killing them, to making sure he was ok with it and now here he is. Not ok with it.

And he’s pretty pissed off about that, because he’d gone to all the trouble of managing an actual potential romantic relationship, and here he is blind-sided by some kind of – what? – brotherly feelings for a couple of geeks?

There’s more beer and a fair amount of grandstanding, and Ward thinks a lot about killing Fitz and Simmons, and he can do it, he’s pretty sure he can do it.

But he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to kill FitzSimmons. And because the second you lie to yourself, you’re dead, he has to admit the rest. He doesn’t want to kill any of them, not May, not Coulson, not Skye.

Grant Ward is loyal to John Garrett, but he kinda wishes he wasn’t.


End file.
